Andhra releases rehabilitation package for families of farmers who killed themselves over agrarian distress

Naveen S Garewal
Tribune News Service
Hyderabad, February 21

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy said his government had released Rs 35.55 crore as part of a rehabilitation package to families of the farmers who committed suicide over the last five years over agrarian distress.

Reddy said his government had released on Thursday as part of its commitment to provide financial assistance for 627 families of such farmers.

The order was issued by Chief Secretary Poonam Malakondaiah. The government said a provision to provide Rs 7 lakh to each of the 627 family had been made in the 2019-20 budget for the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation.

Guntur’s Special Commissioner of Agriculture has been tasked with the responsibility of making sure that the money reaches farmers or tenant farmers.

Reddy’s government had promised to provide such financial assistance to farmers who had committed suicide in the past five years after his party the YSR Congress had swept into power in June last year.

Reddy said in a statement on Friday that he has directed the district collectors to take local legislators with them while distributing the compensation to the families affected.

In its report, the state government had listed several reasons for farmer suicides in the state, such as depleting water tables, the cultivation of commercial crops with high input costs, non-remunerative crop prices, oral tenancy, ineligibility to avail bank Loans, private lending with higher interest rates, adverse seasonal conditions, heavy expenditure incurred towards children education, ill-health and marriages.

The government has also decided to institute helpline numbers at the district collectorate in an attempt to help vulnerable farmers. A distress farmer, or any of his relatives and well-wishers, can call up the helpline to bring any vulnerable farmer likely to commit suicide to the notice of the collector’s office.

Such information would then be sent to the divisional office and Mandal office, after which a development officer and his staff will get in touch with the famer and his family immediately to arrange for appropriate counseling sessions and work out a package to insulate them from the pressures of money lenders.

Andhra Government has also decided that the term “farmer” will include every person who derives substantial livelihood from farming. It not limited only to those with titles to land, but also includes tenant and women farmers.

In case a famer kills himself, the Joint Collector or Joint Director of Agriculture will send an inquest report replete with records of the farmer’s debt, name of the banker, as well as details of requests made for concession or deferring repayment of the loan. The report will also contain the names of the farmer’s family, among other details. This is to help establish the relationship between the farmer suicide and factors of agrarian distress.